During the second year of his daughter's life, Michael Tomasello kept a detailed diary of her language, creating a rich database. He made a careful study of how she acquired her first verbs and analysed the role that verbs played in her early grammatical development. Using a Cognitive Linguistics framework, the author argues persuasively that the child's earliest grammatical organization is verb-specific (the Verb Island hypothesis). He argues further that early language is acquired by means of very general cognitive and social-cognitive processes, especially event structures and cultural learning. The richness of the database and the analytical tools used make First Verbs a particularly useful and important book for developmental psychologists, linguists, language development researchers and speech pathologists.

First Verbs is a useful book for developmental psychologists, linguists, language development researchers and speech pathologists.
Reviews
"...many readers will undoubtedly find the volume illuminating..." Lynn Eubank, Studies in Second Language Acquisitions
"...a useful book for those interested in understanding the sometimes controversial claims that Tomasello proposes....[A]n excellent reference material even for those researchers who are unsympathetic to the cognitive linguistic approach." Jacqueline S. Johnson, Contemporary Psychology
"...a valuable contribution to the child-language literature because of the author's thorough analusis and his boldness in choosing solutions to conceptual problems and then marching on." Lorraine McCune, Merrill-Palmer Quarterly



Book Information
ISBN 9780521374965
Author Michael Tomasello
Format Hardback
Page Count 384
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 730g
Dimensions(mm) 236mm * 162mm * 29mm